Vortex flowmeters measure fluid flow rate by detecting the frequency of disturbances in the flow of process fluid. Such flowmeters typically include embedded systems for communicating with control systems, and for generating outputs related to the disturbances detected in the process fluid passing through the flowtube of the vortex flowmeter. The settings of the embedded systems are often configurable by navigating through a series of menus presented on a typical vortex flowmeter's user interface. Since vortex flowmeters are application specific, many of the possible configuration settings pertaining to the embedded systems of the flowmeter are never used when the flowmeter is configured. However, a user must still navigate by keystrokes through the unused configuration settings via the menus. For this reason, the number of keystrokes required to navigate a menu tree in order to configure a flowmeter results in an inefficient and error-prone configuration process.
A need exists to provide a user with a configuration menu engine that is more efficient to navigate, as well as less error prone and reduces the amount of flash memory needed for operation of the menu engine. This is especially true given that the interface on which the menu is navigated typically comprises a simple liquid crystal display (LCD) with 2-4 lines of 8-16 characters per line.